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Right, so what do I have to do to shoot down that Overseer UFO? I have a Firestorm, a couple of dodges, aim and something else i can't remember. Do I pretty much need to kit it out with all the available gear?

My elite sniper has finally fallen. After winning so many epic battles in which the fate of the world was at stake, she was unceremoniously sniped from across the map during a relatively routine "clear the crashed ufo" mission. It was the same death she delivered to many on their side.

The memorial wall tells me she completed 23 missions with 86 total kills. She also saved the world, or what's left of it.

The remaining troops need a new source of hope, and I think I've found it. In the last few months our psionics research project has made some impressive advances (based off of discoveries made during the autopsy of the initial sectoid commander). Several troops have been found to be gifted, psionically, but one in particular seems to be a natural. She's no more seasoned a fighter than any of the other recruits, but she has the ability to bolster the will of her comrades, allowing them to continue fighting even when overcome by panic. She may be exactly the leader my undisciplined troops need, provided she can overcome her own panic long enough to help the others.

My firestorm with plasma took down the overseer ufo quite easily. I think I had a dodge and a tracking just in case. The overseer ufo isn't as tough to shoot down as for example a battleship.

Ah, so there are tougher ships to come? I thought I was near the end....but I suppose I haven't even unlocked Psi stuff yet. The research funds are starting to dry up now (alloys especially) so I am starting to regret just buying everything as it became available at the start.

You are right about the goddam snipers. When I see a sniper miss with a 69% chance, I take it much harder than a normal soldier - 'but you're a sniper for chrissakes!'

Snipers are the most different when it comes to usefulness in early and lategame. As rookies, they are absolutely useless. Once they get squadsight that changes somewhat, but they still miss half the time. But as soon as they get to a high level, they wreck aliens left and right and it seems they score critical hits most of the times.

And yes, there are much tougher ships coming up later. Those where a firestorm with plasma is the absolute minimum required to shoot them down reliably. Better get a fusion launcher.

Finally got the Overseer UFO, but this has been followed by 2 terror missions where I've taken heavy casualties, most notably one Heavy Colonel and my most advanced Sniper (he rarely hit anything, but still...). Am now in a that terror mission with the large grey building and where all the bloody floaters materialise right on top of you. It's becoming a bit of a drag, I may take a break from it.

My newbie squad faced their first terror mission the other night. They landed in front of a two story government looking building and spread out to take cover behind various cars and fences outside. They traded a few shots with some Heavy Floaters located within the building itself until suddenly a Sectopod burst out through the front doors of the library, followed by four Chrysalids and two more Heavy Floaters. Including the Floaters in the windows and the Sectopod's drone repair crew, I had 10 (!) aliens within view of my squad all at once. And retreat wasn't an option because the world was once again on the very edge of total panic.

And so I ordered my squad to sprint around the side of the building and down a blind alley, as fast and as far as they could. Normally that's a recipe for disaster because you end up alerting far more enemies than you can deal with at once, but since I was already in that exact situation I figured it was my only hope.

I left one soldier behind to try to delay the enemy pursuit. One thing I had going for me was that the aliens who burst out of the building were extremely clumped up. I ran my heavy soldier forward and threw an alien grenade that took out all of the Sectopod's repair drones, damaged the Sectopod itself, and damaged three of the four Chrysalids as well. All four of the Chrysalids tried charging towards that soldier, but things were so jammed up in that doorway that they had to take a really long path to actually get to him. This meant that none were actually able to attack on the same turn they moved, so they all just pushed in as close as possible, eager to tear him apart next turn.

And then something amazing happened. The Sectopod shot a high powered laser at the soldier, and the splash damage from the resulting explosion killed off three of the Chrysalids as well! My soldier died too, of course, but his sacrificial diversion ended up doing way, way more damage than I had hoped for.

In another bit of luck, there wasn't anything scary at the end of that blind alley. My remaining soldiers were able to turn and fight, picking off a few more aliens as they rounded the corner in pursuit. They were then able to carefully circle around the back of the building, picking off stray Floaters and Chrysalids as they went, always trying to keep on the opposite side of the building from the Sectopod. The squad leader's psionic powers came in extremely handy here, letting her pick off enemies fortified within the building even through heavy cover, and bolstering the rest of the troops' morale to keep them from panicking.

Eventually I was left with four wounded soldiers, with only the Sectopod left to take down. I had seen Sectopods defeat entire squads of much more seasoned soldiers than these, so I really didn't like my chances. Also, my squad leader's new-found psionic powers were useless against robotic enemies, and that really was the only ace we had left. I spent some time carefully running around the map rescuing the civilians in the hopes that when there was no one left to protect, the game would let me leave the mission without having to actually take the Sectopod down. After rescuing the final civilian, however, I received no word saying it was now safe to retreat. Sigh.

There was nothing left to do except spread out and assault the Sectopod all at once. This time I knew enough about the Sectopod's abilities (thanks to the previous encounters and an autopsy performed back home) to ensure my squad weren't all immediately killed, but it was still a very bloody battle. Two soldiers were dead and a third was left unconscious and bleeding out before my last soldier finally took the enemy down.

My psionically gifted soldier was the first to die in that final stand, so I guess it was a bit premature to pin all of mankind's hopes on her. Still, at the end of the day, a group of newbie soldiers, none of them promoted above rank two, managed to successfully complete the scariest terror mission I'd seen so far. It took a lot of luck, of course, but maybe our organization's technology and knowledge has progressed to the point where common soldiers can actually win this fight. Maybe there's still hope.

Hm... I never had much problems with sectopods, except when there were two of them. Of course it helps that all my heavies have HEAT ammunition and most of them holo-targeting. With heavy plasma they can easily do up to 20 damage per hit on mechanized units. The rest is just a matter of supporting fire from other squaddies.

One other thing: am I the only one where the whole squad usually freaks out at once? It's comical at times, when for example one guy freaks out because some muton looks at him funny and he panics and shoots the soldier next to him. Just for that guy to shoot at the next guy, who then panics and shoots the next guy, who freaks out and kills the muton.

I had one mission with two rookies, who would freak out at alternate turns and ALWAYS shoot at my support guy. I don't know where this intense hatred for him came from, but he used all his 3 medkits for patching himself up during this mission.

XCom is a game which can become hilarious and at its best when shit hits the fan. Like that involuntary last stand by one of my heavies, who killed 4 or 5 charging aliens while slowly dying to poison. With her last ammo spent she succumbed to her injuries, her sacrifice ensuring that the rest of my squad could get the VIP to safety.

Having plasma weapons at all probably helps a lot vs the Sectopods. This was the first Sectopod I'd encountered since finally managing to upgrade to plasma weaponry, and that upgrade probably contributed more than anything else to my narrow victory. I can't wait to see what veteran troops can do with these weapons. I'd love to promote some of my troops along an "anti-mechanical" track as well. Heat Ammo on heavies and Lightning Reflexes for assault troops would both be great vs Sectopods, but none of my troops are leveled up high enough for those.

I've also turned off the enemy health bars, so I can't tell how much damage I'm actually doing. It makes everything a bit scarier.

I haven't had any funny chain reaction panics like that, but generally my troops do all panic at once. Like I'll lose one soldier and the rest will be useless for a turn. So far they've been pretty good about not shooting their squad mates, at least. The few times they've shot toward their mates they've missed, thankfully.

In fact, I'm actually helped by the panic mechanics as often as not. My soldier will end his turn by shooting a Muton, causing the Muton to growl at him, causing my soldier to panic and shoot again, killing the Muton. If the Muton had just stayed quiet he would have probably killed my soldier on his turn. That situation has played out 5 or 6 times so far.

The first Sectopod I encountered was prior to plasma weaponry. But he didn't fire at my troops, since my heavy (with HEAT) did quite some damage before an assault with scatter laser and rapid fire charged in and crushed what was left. There were only few occasions where a Sectopod actually fired at me. On my first playthrough it didn't even occur to me how dangerous they can be, since I crushed them with overwhelming firepower rather than figuring out how much damage they might be able to dish out. I just figured from previous encounters with Cyberdiscs that mechanized alien units need to be taken out ASAP.

There have been some good stories on here but I think that's me done with Xcom. I've spent three hours trying to clear a supply barge and all I have to show for it is one Ethereal dead (and my sniper, useless motherfucker that he was).

At that point the entire ship's crew materialise out of nowhere at once - 13 Heavy Floaters, 3 Mutons and the one time I managed to kill that lot, a Sectopod appeared, seemingly out of the ground, to wipe out my crew and their empty guns.

The two survivors from that last terror mission went on to form the foundation of a new squad. After that there were two relatively easy missions in a row during which I was able to earn a variety of new promotions without losing anyone. I've also equipped my entire squad with new plasma weapons and sturdier armor. I even have a couple up and coming psionically gifted soldiers working to hone their new powers. And shiny new firestorms stationed in every continent, ready to intercept any ufos that enter the atmosphere.

In fairness her eyes have just taken on a more...ethereal...blue, but the horror.

The end game went very fast for me - I basically went from Gollop Chamber to end credits super fast...it seems other people got a lot more use out of their Psi soldiers. I was going to stay playing for a while before entering the end game but the missions seemed to be few and far between at that point.

I had the same. As soon as the Gollop Chamber was done, my squad of earth's finest galloped towards the final showdown. I had only 2 psi-capable soldiers, one of them being the superbrain ultimately saving the earth. The other could scratch his nose by power of will, but not much more.